6 Comments:

PatFromCH said...

Hell, this looks like one of my fractals.....that's what I thought, now I know, but I ain't sayin', being swiss and all that I might have one advantage....I could tell ya the way to Sesame Street though.....and some of the friendly folks who live there....

You and PatfromCH share the pizza. Pat coded his answer, but he was hinting at Bert of Bert & Ernie. Ernie, of course, is the other neutrino found by the IceCube South Pole Neutrino Observatory. I seem to recall that the experiment was built at the South Pole so incoming particles would have the least electrical interference.

So like who are you, where are you, what are you, and why is the neutrino image as familiar to you as Lady Gaga is to most people?

I renounce my half pie prize. I cannot distinguish between Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street, let alone the neutrons. I was only checking to see if anyone was home...no blogging for over a month. Now that I can see you're safe and sound I'll return to the either room.As for who I am: I'm not the Phroso from Tod Browning's Freaks. More the Phroso from Tod Browning's West of Zanzibar.I usually re-invent myself every 6 months or so...and I've been Phroso for 18 months. Soon to be someone else...possibly a great Hollywood actor like Warren William.Hail and farewell.

Oh well -- I don't think I accused you of being a robot, but Vleeptron gets lots of automated "faux comments."

"Freaks" of course is as familiar to me as Cheerios, but I've never seen West of Zanzibar. I'll have to scare it up. They wouldn't let me out of college until I'd seen "Freaks."

But still you haven't explained why Bert the Neutrino is so familiar and recognizeable to you?

Neutrino is an Italian construction for "little neutron," but I am guessing both particles have neutral electric charge -- and so I guess neither would be affected by the Earth's magnetic field. But the neutrino is notorious for having so little mass that it can pass through entire planets (like Earth) without bumping into or being impeded by or interacting with any other particle.

Thus neutrinos are notoriously difficult to detect or count or image.

Neutrons have more or less the same mass as the positive-charge proton. The nucleus of every element (except simple hydrogen) is composed of neutrons and protons.